"Are humans animals" - there's many levels on which to consider that question. Biologically and taxonomically (dig the long words!) yes, we are. Kingdom Animalia, Phyllum chordata, subphyllum vertebrata, class mammalia, subclass theria, order primates, family hominidae, genus Homo, species sapiens. We're born, age and inevitably die. That holds true for all living things. On an intellectual level, many species (dolphins for example, chimps as mentioned above) have nearly equal, equal or even superior mental faculties as we do. So "yes" on that level too. On a spiritual level, here's where it gets tricky. Judeochristian philosophy says man is above the animals. I sort of agree with that, but with a caveat. An Ojibwa friend of mine spoke about how people were supposed to be the caretakers of the earth. We have the capacity to appreciate the land (as I suppose dolphins and whales do for the sea), and with that capacity and it's resultant power comes responsibility (like Spiderman said). However, modern man is abusing his position, and destroying the Earth. So in some respects we have the capacity to be both lesser (an animal never willingly destroys it's habitat) and greater than animals.
I like animals anyway. I think if I had a cat or a dog, I would treat it as though it were part of the clan. Personification.
Cats wont play and dogs do whatever you tell em. Is it possible that the purpose of the planet in creating life was to achieve an intelligence that could leave the restrictions of the sphere and spread into space, if that is a possiblity then we could class ourselves as other than animal perhaps ?
my cat plays fetch and follows me everywhere i go. my dogs would just grab the ball, chew on it and lay there. and god forbid i should go for a walk without a strong leash on them. however, my cats will follow me to my friends' house and wait on the front porch for me to come out and go home. mind you, i still want a dog.
if there were no humans.. the world wouldn't need caretakers.. the only animals that damage the world are humans.. all the others live in harmony with it.. thats the real difference between humans and "animals".. although most 'primitive' tribes live in harmony with their environment.(i hesitate to use the world primitive, because i belive primitive must be related to mindset as well as technology levels) so the real difference is humans are the only animal to purposely screw up there home by believing that it'll all be ok when we die. but the question is... ok for who exactly?... its a very selfish way of looking at it i think. an after thought..someone mentioned about instict a while ago... all animals share the base instict to survive.. lions use their instinct to survive in their habitat.. and we use our instinct to survive in ours... i instictely know that i should earn some money so that i may get some food to eat to help me survive... so we all really run on instict us and the "animals"
Sorry but honestly if the planet were overun with say elephants then they too would "damage the planet" and not care too hoots about it either, and I dont think any other animal would be any different. So we are exactly the same as animals in this regard but some people at the same time apparantly want us to be better than animals, cake and eat it comes to mind. We didn't arrive in a spaceship we are what this planet made us, if we are the same as animals then we should give no thought to the state of the planet, what will be will be.
it's true. there's inevitably an unbalance in nature that will correct itself in the end. we're not the only animals to over run the environment and change the place where we live. rabbits are no better at keeping their living space clean than we are. it's just that the predators keep their populations down. humans have disease, war, starvation, murder, suicide and all those other things that we are supposed to nobly put an end to.
Physically, we are all living beings. But the human brain is different... Take a look at the whole civilization built by humans on this Earth.